A community shop which is run entirely by volunteers has applied to stay at its base for another three years whilst work continues to create it a permanent home.

Gosfield Village Shop, based at Gosfield Playing Field, in Church Road, wants permission from Braintree Council to stay at its home until 2021.

In this time, Gosfield Community Foundation, which opened the shop in July 2015, says it will work on plans to create a new, permanent space for the shop.

A planning statement reads: "The Gosfield Foundation would like to use the framework of an additional three years temporary planning permission to remain on site whilst a full planning application comes forward to build a new village shop.

"The proposal for this is to apply to build an extension to the playing field pavilion for the purpose of a village shop.

"An option is to knock out the current public toilet space and to build a small extension from this to create a new village shop.

"An option would be to build a new stand alone toilet block at the current location of the shop."

In order to create its new permanent home, Gosfield Community Foundation is set to create a "fighting fund".

The organisation ran a successful fundraising campaign in order to purchase its current temporary premises.

Gosfield Village Shop now takes around £100,000 a year in sales, a number it believes will increase with the ongoing development of the village.

The statement continues: "Gosfield is a vibrant village and this year has entered Best Village of the Year and East Anglia in Bloom.

"It is a social village and well connected and cohesive and the shop is now very much instrumental in acting as a community point, a collection point and meeting up point.

"A new shop for the village will mean that the village has a shop which is sustainable for the longer term without the threat of the service closing down again.

"It has been successful both financially and socially and is able to use its profits to invest back into the community by donating small funding grants to local groups."